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Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Green bin rubbish uplift to be reduced to once every three weeks?

Chair of River Community Council Tommy Hogg has already gone on record with his opposition to the proposal by Highland Council to reduce the
bin collection from every two weeks to three. He his quoted in a Courier
article here. A massive flood of
criticism from members of the public has been voiced on that article’s webpage.

Last night at the joint meeting of the West and Suburban
Councils heard further opposition voiced. The discussion on the frequency of
the green bin service was raised after the subject of household rubbish being
dumped in the Tradespark Wood was aired.
Rubbish has been found at several points in the Tradespark wood and the
police have been involved after bills with an address were discovered in one of
the bags. Whether the dumping is an element of someone’s lifestyle choice or
because they have no room left in their green bin is unknown but someone has
been spoken to by the police.

Ian Knox then said: “Is there any truth in the rumour that I’ve
been stopped and asked about changing the green bins from 2 weeks to 3 weeks? I
thought we were actually trying to get
it back to one week again?”

Dick Youngson replied: “I don’t know if we’ll ever get that
but there are all these options being looked at.”

Graham Vine pointed out to Highland Councillor Colin
MacAulay (the only authority member present – Liz and Michael had sent
apologies) that if someone was away when a three week collection was made that
would make it six weeks and that in the summer months would in the summer
months just be a horrible festering mess.

Dick was also worried about rubbish spewing out of the top
of bins. He added: “Strictly speaking the refuse collectors shouldn’t handle
that bin if the lid doesn’t close.”

Colin then said: “These are pros and cons. More bin
collections, you know we are trying to recycle more and one of the moves in
that direction of smaller and fewer bins and different bins. And I know that’s
a hassle factor for society but it is one of the things in terms of a kind of
social engineering kind of a way that does do what we all want to do which is
waste less and recycle more. “

Martin Ashford said we should have more comprehensive
recycling, picking up glass etc.

This observer pointed out that the whole bin collection
system can go haywire in areas where bins are uplifted together in areas like
the High Street. An offending object might be placed in a bin after you have
placed it in the uplift area (a piece of polystyrene in a blue bin for example)
and an innocent householder will not have their bin emptied and get a sticker
telling them why on the bin. People have been known to give up recycling after
this treatment and simply put everything in the green bin again.

Murd Dunbar called for a skip outside the recycling centre
because if people go up and the centre is shut they will not take the rubbish
home but just dump it. Murd said their argument against that was that it might
not be “landfill” material but he said that surely it would be better there
than dumped around the Country.

Ian Knox called for consultation before anything happened.
Colin MacAulay then said:

“A whole range of ideas have come into the Council about how
to save money, so that will be one of the ideas and we will do some financial
crunching on the pros and cons and what the savings are. It will then come back
to us as either as a firm proposal or not. It’s not in the offing imminently
and I guess what I can try and do is flag up whenever it is and take a view in
terms of...it will be a saving when it comes through. It’s a case of if we need
to make a saving what do we make the saving on? I’ll try when it gets to that
budget setting stage and what kind of proposals are there, I’ll try and bring
it back so folk can give it a good airing anyway.”

John Mackie said he could have understood it if it was going
to be the blue bin but not the green bin.

What do you think Gurnshire? Could you cope with a three weekly green bin uplift?
Do you think Colin has the right attitude or should he simply say to his
political colleagues “my constituents will not accept this, it shouldn’t even
be a cost saving proposal going forward”?

Collection of waste from households and then processing it costs every household, and those within the remit of Highland Council are no exception.

Just as we enjoy the Highlands it offer its own problems for Highland Council as they have to collect refuse from such a huge area and then recycle some of it

Rather than increase collections as @Brian Turner suggests would it not be advantageous to have more collection bins at supermarkets where much of this waste comes from? After all many of us manage to shop so why not recycle at the same time, better still place an onus on the supermarkets to do more with regard wasteful packaging

As we have a freeze on council tax what is really going to hurt families is a reduction is council services or even job losses in some instances

Would it not be sensible to ask individuals to do more with their waste rather than have an expectation of HC doing more for us?

Personally I'd be happy to have my green bin emptied once a month. I certainly wouldn't see an increase in the types of collections as 'better"

I may be wrong but I thought we could only recycle plastic bottles and paper/cardboard, and tins. They have to take more plastics and pots etc. before they reduce collections. The difference to when I lived in Moray is massive.

What do you think from Inverness Council. I pay for collection and I want it collected, not cause a possible health problem. Two weeks is long enough, and anything above that. I know lets cut the number of councillors and not pay than anything about 5k a year total. Also make sure no-one in the council is earning above 80k and get rid of a lot of managers. Plenty of savings to be made from middle and senior management.

The bin police are also a problem here in the Fishertown. I often get items placed in my bins which are in the wrong ones. I'd much rather folk passing used my bins rather than drop litter on the street but I wish that the scaffies would realise that, or am I supposed to chain my bins shut for 13 days?

I have no problem with less frequent collection if the money can be spent on something else.

Yes the savings can go to pay the following wages in Inverness:Chief Executive - £142,926Depute Chief Executive and Director of Corporate Development - £118,323Director of Care and Learning - £107,568Director of Community Services - £107,568Director of Development and Infrastructure - £107,568Director of Finance - £107,568

I do hope there is more consultation than the budget leader's blog on budget expenditure. Mind you a big budget driver is chidcare provision being enforced on rural communities who find it hard to fund. It would be better to vote locally (very locally) on which crack pot schemes we want but that will never come to pass.

We've got 3 kids - all aged 3 and under - and we struggle every fortnight to stop the bins overflowing. We recycle as much as we can, but we've got a garage full of cardboard left over from Christmas because we can't fit it all in. In Spring we actually had to keep a bin bag full of waste in the garage for a week as our green bill was already full. We've also built up a large collection of glass bottles that we feel should be recycled, but isn't collected.

Neither my wife or I drive, so we can't get to the dump in Inverness or the recycling centre in Nairn.

If bin collections move to 3 weeks fly tipping will become worse, people will be filling their neighbours bins when they aren't looking, there will be bin bags lying in gardens and in the streets.

I live in Tradespark - there should be recycling down here at the Co-op to alleviate the struggle myself and others have of overflowing bins.

Margo Leadbetter: Now listen very carefully to me, Mr... umm, Mr. Squires. I have itemized the components of my rates bill scrupulously.

Mr. Squires: As every citizen should Mrs. Leadbetter.

Margo Leadbetter: I am not a citizen. I am a resident. Now, road cleaning, I shall pay. Street lighting, I shall pay. Ground rent, I shall pay. But when it comes to the drain in front of my house, I shall not. Because it is blocked up and overflowing.

Mr. Squires: I'll make a note of that.

Margo Leadbetter: You will do more than that, Mr. Squires. You will have a plumber on my door step at nine o'clock tomorrow morning with a plunger in his hand, or you will not get a penny.

Anonymous 9:38. If there's a yes vote I think we can expect little change for years as all their time will be spent on negotiating etc. With a no vote perhaps the Scottish government can return to governing rather than campaigning and so possibly. If there is a no I hope accountability of each parliament is more transparent, at the moment they can throw mud at each others houses.

Just one small point there is NO Inverness Council, well not to my knowledge its still Highland Council and therefore every area has its say and input!!!!! More to the point will we be issued with slightly bigger bins to accomodate the longer collections, I somehow don't think so.